Danielle McLaughlin
It’s 2015 all over again in the US. A crowded field of would-be leaders of the free world are jockeying for position in the long lead-up to the party’s presidential nomination. But this time it’s not a pool of Right-leaning governors, senators and business moguls who four years ago slowly evaporated, leaving a victorious Donald Trump. It’s 13 (and counting) Democrats and Bernie Sanders.
All are hoping to attract enough support, money, and media to land them on the Democratic National Committee’s nominating stage in Milwaukee in July next year. And all are vying to harness the anger and frustration of Left-leaning voters who have watched as Trump scrapped many of the Obama-era policies they cared about, bucking traditions along the way.
Because of the president’s norm-busting example (hiring family and keeping his businesses, to name but a few), because of the field size (it could double in months), and because of the nature of a primary election, which attracts more hardline voters, some candidates are making the case that a vote for them is a vote for a radical reimagining of American democracy.
The Electoral College is the circuitous system by which the president is elected. Rather than a straight popular vote counted across the country, each state is apportioned a certain number of 538 college votes, and the candidate who wins more than 270 of those votes wins the presidency.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke have come out in favour of abandoning the system – which is mandated by the US Constitution – partly because Democrats have lost the presidency twice in recent memory (in 2000 and 2016) after winning the popular vote.
Another reason is the system’s roots in slavery. At America’s founding, the constitution set out that slaves were only ‘‘worth’’ 3/5ths of a person for the purposes of taxation or political representation. Using this measure, the slave-heavy South was at a disadvantage in a straight ‘‘one person, one vote’’ system. Founding Father James Madison was explicit about creating the college to counter that reality, writing that Southern states ‘‘could have no influence in the election on the score of negroes’’.
Because the Electoral College is a creation of the constitution, any attempt to change it requires a constitutional amendment. The US has done it before Danielle McLaughlin is the Sunday Star-Times’ US correspondent. She is a lawyer, author, and political and legal commentator, appearing frequently on US and New Zealand TV and radio. She is also an ambassador for #ChampionWomen, which aims to encourage respectful, diverse, and thoughtful conversations. Follow Danielle on Twitter at @MsDMcLaughlin.